In arranging for increased carding operation output it is often desirable to produce a heavy web which is split after carding to provide multiple slivers of the weight required. Thus, if 50 grain slivers are required, a web of 100 grain weight is produced and split medially after carding to allow formation of two slivers of the required weight.
The conventional means employed for such web splitting is a so-called ring doffer which is a card doffer roll having the clothing thereon disabled at a relatively narrow circumferential zone to effect the web splitting or division. The common practice heretofore followed in disabling the card clothing for this purpose has involved filling the clothing with a ring of metallic or plastic material at the circumferential zone where the splitting is to be done so that the doffer clothing will not strip at this zone and the doffer roll will accordingly strip separate webs at each side of this zone from the card cylinder for take-off and sliver formation. Such prior practice, however, has involved troublesome difficulty with loading of the card cylinder opposite the zone at which the doffer roll clothing has been disabled, and with the concerted efforts in recent years directed at increasing carding production rates such difficulty has been emphasized substantially.
The present invention eliminates this difficulty in an exceptionally advantageous manner.